General

I got to dig into my red scraps & made ten red houses for the Quilter’s Cove QAL. I also discovered that I need to go shopping for some bright red FQ’s! I have a bin full of rust & maroon chunks inherited from an older quilter who had to give up her stash. I promised to use it up & I’m slowly doing that, but I’m low on bright reds. Apparently I decimated them last year! I have what I need to finish up March, but next year…… 🙂

My red-centric WIP for the month is done & ready for the quilter. This was a previous quilt group project & used up lots of red strips. My partners made theirs with 5 matching reds, but I had so many random red strips leftover from rolls that I figured scrappy was the way to go. I used them all & only cut a little yardage, then made the 3 stars from the same fabrics for consistency.

It turns out that green-centric WIPs are thin on the ground in my studio. So I pulled out an old group quilt project. I hated every minute of these birds & when my partners went ahead & finished on their own, I left it in the box. I don’t know how long ago we did this but it was long before COVID, so…..years.

One of my quilting partners gave me a gift for Christmas of free quilting, so I told her I would get the birds done & have her quilt it. She LOVES the birds, so that will be fun for her. These are the last two birds I needed to do before sashing & border.

I’ve since done a couple other quilts by The Pattern Basket & understand her method of pattern writing, plus I have more experience & all the things that frustrated me back then seemed no big deal now. So these went together quickly. I also got the first two rows sashed this week, but with two funerals this week, one of which included an overnight trip, I didn’t have much sewing time. But I’m thinking that even with the short month, I should stay on track with green blocks & maybe start the houses??

Rocky Road to Grayson is a blue WIP January finish! First goal accomplished. I started in January 2022, so it’s been around the studio for an age. It took much longer than I anticipated to finish, so I did not get any blue houses made for the Quilter’s Cove QAL.

I got seven full & one half block made for Starlets by Modernly Morgan & 14 string blocks for Stardust. The previously posted Nine-Patch & Snowball blocks round out my goals for the month. So I feel pretty dang good about things, even without the houses.

I got blue binding made & attached to County Fair from last year’s RSC & evening binding has begun.

Since it’s blue this month, I thought I’d report on my orange peels. I’m appliqueing these by hand each Monday morning in my handwork group. I got them all out this month to check on progress. I’m about 2/3 of the way through, so I should finish these up this year!

These charity baby quilts got bound this week & are ready to be donated. The left was made from orphan pieces leftover from the quilt I just finished, & the right was made from a friend’s unwanted charm pack.

I like to do a new challenge every so often, so here’s my fun change-up for 2026, which is to match up the books that you’ve read with the pictures on the bingo card.

#1-Scraptastic Stars by Melissa Corry made it to flimsy stage & is waiting to be quilted

#2-County Fair by Amy Smart is currently at the quilter

#3-2.5″ Rail Fence blocks were begun in 2024 & continued this year; it’s a flimsy ready to be donated to Many Hands Many Hearts with my February box